Paper short abstract:

This paper seems to explore the conceptualization and practice of translation in modern Tamil literary culture. Focusing on a debate in the pages of the Tamil literary review, the Manikodi it argues that translation as a self-conscious literary practice emerged in the 1930s.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seems to explore the conceptualization and practice of translation in modern Tamil literary culture. It argues that translation as a self-conscious literary practice emerges only in the 1930s. In the late nineteenth-century, essays and stories were translated for pedagogical and edificatory purposes. Writings from English were adapted without acknowledgment. It was not uncommon for such translations to carry no reference to the original author, and the 'translation' itself showed little fidelity to the form, structure, style or even lexicon. This was an accepted practice and was not considered to be plagiarism.

A recognizably modern concept and practice of translation emerged in the inter-War period. This moment was inaugurated by the arrival of the popular novel which borrowed heavily from the penny-dreadfuls of Victorian England. In the 1920s such borrowing came in for criticism.

I focus on an important debate in the pages of the Tamil literary review, the Manikodi In this debate, 'Thazhuvala, Mozhipeyarpa' (adaptation or translation) eight important writers and critics debated the question of the nature of translation. I argue that it was through this debate that adaptation (both acknowledged and unacknowledged) was constituted as inferior, and a translation faithful to the original was recognized as a valued literary practice. Underpinning this was the conception of a self-conscious author who created an original text that was situated in a specific time and place. Through an analysis of this debate this argument is fleshed out.